Meridian flip issue with recent firmware

Menion

Starting from version 1.8.3 (1.8.1 is the latest one working) the asi air tries a plate solving just before the meridian flip. So it takes a shot when the mount is not tracking. This is wrong and it works by chance only if your exposure center time is short and your focal is short, so the shot will not get so much star trail and the plate solving succeed.
If instead you use filters, so you have extended the exposure center time and your focal is long enough, the shot will get star trail, the plate solving fails and the meridian flip does not happen.
This behaviour is wrong and must be fixed

astrosatch

If you search on this forum for older posts you'll see that this is not exactly new issue. I've had this problem for awhile. I was pretty much alone in this so not worth looking into problem for ZWO. Maybe this will change now when more people report this. I've found some kind of workaround for this, so I can image reasonably automatic through MF.

Maybe we have wrong perception about as easy as 1,2,3.. Maybe ZWO wants us to experience all of caveats of astrophotography including not working equipment and other elemental powers. Maybe they want us to go from 4,5,6...999 by ourselves.😆

Menion

Yes but this is a real specific issue. They have added the plate solving before flip when mount is stopped, and this happened in 1.8.3. This step is just wrong and must be removed, or if it is really required they must put the mount in tracking before shooting

astrosatch

Menion
I agree completely. Don't know why it is doing that. I have this behaviour since I bought gem45 in summer 2020. Don't remember which version was at that time but it wasn't corected in later versions despite my cry for help. I have learned to live with it. It puzzles me that no one had this problem.

stevesp

Are you sure that you don’t have to work on mount setting?
Asiair just mainly sends goto and guide commands to the mount

ckoos

astrosatch I also noticed that the AAP is shutting off tracking before a MF. That seemed odd to me. However, my setup does execute the MF, and then does a successful plate solve afterwards. So, something is different between failing and working setups. I'm guessing that's why there are only a few reports of this failing.

w7ay

ckoos I also noticed that the AAP is shutting off tracking before a MF.

Tracking has to stop at the time of the meridian flip, otherwise the OTA will be crossing the Meridian without doing a pier flip, and potentially crashing the instrumentation into the pier.

However, the tracking needs to stop only after the ASIAIR has taken one last plate solving frame, to use later to confirm that the FOV has inverted after the flip. There are other ways to confirm a flip, but ZWO chose to look at camera angles, and thus need the plate solves. Self inflicted wound. Most mount protocols will even return the side of the pier the declination axis is located.

The bug probably is caused by the last plate not being taken before tracking stopped. That will cause streak in that plate and thus not recognize as parts of an asterism.

A regression test to confirm the precise choreography of an automatic meridian flip would have detected the bug.

The latest ASIAIR v1.9 TestFlight beta alludes to fixing an "AMF bug." I have no idea if the acronym refers to auto meridian flips; it might as well be talking about bowling balls.

If you are not a beta tester, try reducing the meridian flip exposure time. That will reduce the streaking and help make the stars be recognized as stars.

Chen

astrosatch

w7ay The bug probably is caused by the last plate not being taken before tracking stopped. That will cause streak in that plate and thus not recognize as parts of an asterism.

Yes. After last image is taken before meridian countdown starts there in no plate solve. Tracking stops and after countdown is over image is taken and plate solve tries to solve. Tracking is still off. If plate solve succeeds meridian flip is initiated and imaging continues. So this is actually a bug. But not acknowledged to this day. It needs to be corrected. I hope soon.

dinglem1962

I'm also seeing this issue but was ignoring it as I'm having real problems with WIFI disconnects. I've been resetting the sequence and starting again the AAP then slews around to the other side as the object has passed the meridian and starts again. The response to these issues is not good I'm starting to think I've wasted a lot of money on something that isn't fir for purpose.

charles18

I confirm I'm seeing this as well, and is particularly problematic at high focal length (Meridian flip consistently fails at 1400mm focal length due to plate-solve fail, but is fine on the 400mm refractor). Sounds there is a pretty easy fix: re-enable mount tracking before taking the plate-solve shot.

Is ZWO aware of this issue?